Star Wars Super Bombad Racing

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Eleven new movies of the single player racing in Lucas Learning's amazingly CUTE kart racer.

By IGN Staff

Believe it not, Star Wars: Super Bombad Racing is not only a surprisingly good looking game, but the course design is clever and the gameplay is fun, and this kart-style game that we were once dreading is now a title we are looking forward to. How things never cease to change. Today we have a dozen new movies of the game for you to view.

Previous Information: Hands-on Impressions(02/21/01) Today, we were given a chance to play the latest build of Lucas Learning's first console game, Star Wars: Super Bombad Racing for PlayStation 2. And much to our amazement, the game is shaping up surprisingly well. It's not that we didn't have faith in Lucas Learning, but we're generally not too enthused about kart- racing games based on popular licenses because they typically end up being halfhearted attempts by a company to make a quick buck off of a well-known franchise.

However, Lucas Learning appears to have done just about everything right in creating this title. The Star Wars license is used tremendously well, as the game's many levels are littered with objects and characters from the Star Wars universe, both old a new. Players will see things like the Millennium Falcon, tanks moving back and forth across levels, Trade Federation droids, and even Vana's Starfighter, the Guardian Mantis from LucasArts' recently released Star Wars: Starfighter, throughout the game's diverse locale.

What's more, the general track design appears to have a lot in common with EA Canada's snowboarding game, SSX. They aren't quite as massively scaled as the mountains in SSX, but they're similar is in the number, types, and varieties of shortcuts that can be found. Players will encounter numerous shortcuts that hidden in odd places that generally require more than just finding them to make use of them. The shortcuts can come in the form of weird tunnels, high ledges and other things as simple as soaring over and onto a set of boxes and crates to get past some tricky turns in a level.

And beyond track design and quantity of cleverly designed shortcuts, Lucas Learning has gone out of its way to try and implement some new strategic elements into the gameplay and control that should help it stand out among the glutton of kart-based racing games that have been released over the years. In addition to the basic functions that are offered in all kart games, like speed boosts, power-ups, jumping, and a powersliding technique, which is performed by pressing the gas and break buttons at the same time while turning, Super Bombad Racing actually brings some brand new elements to the fore.

Most notably is the inclusion of gadgets, which work similarly to the power-ups, but are based more on interaction with the other riders. For example, there's a grappling hook that you can use to shoot at an opponent in front of you to use to pull you past them and a Jammer that causes the opponent hit by the screen to lose their site as their screen turns red and gets a jammed transmission effect.

Furthermore, there are some levels where there's either no gravity or an anti-boost power-up that lets player race in a more of a 3D plane as the X and Y axis will then come into play. It adds a new element to the genre that has only been previously done in a select few kart racers.

Additionally, Super Bombad Racing has all of the conventional trimmings for multiplayer play, including battle, racing and cooperative modes. It supports up to four players, as all kart racers should, and while it was a little confusing to make it through the levels the first time through in the four-player split-screen mode, it's something will likely be remedied by just getting to know the levels in single player mode first.

And for those of you that don't care about all of these gameplay enhancements and stuff like quality level design, Super Bombad Racing is quite the visual tour de force. It's not the most visually impressive PlayStation 2 title that we've seen, but it's definitely among the upper tier titles in terms of texture quality and framerate, with very little to no slowdown in either the single player or multiplayer split-screen play modes. There's a nice diversity in the textures being used and the end result is a very vibrantly colored game with a very cartoon-like look and feel.

Star Wars: Super Bombad Racing is really a lot of fun and the general cute factor is just through the roof. It's definitely a title that will appeal to younger kids and Star Wars fans of all ages. In fact, I have to say, with no shame at all, that Jar Jar's persona actually fits perfectly in this type of game and his voiceovers are actually amusing and he adds a lot of value to the game.

-- Dave Zdyrko

Previous Information(02/14/01) We understand that most hardcore gamers cringe at the thought of another license-based kart racing game on a console because it's probably the most over-abused genre around. On the other hand, there have actually been quite a few good, albeit not spectacular, games in the genre over the past few years, so let's not instantly dismiss Lucas Learning's upcoming PlayStation 2 release, Star Wars Super Bombad Racing, as a title to avoid or ridicule.

For instance, Walt Disney World Quest: Magic Racing Tour had phenomenal track design and catchy Disney music and titles like Muppet Race Mania and Looney Tunes Racing turned out better than anyone expected. Each of these titles managed to succeed simply because they made good use of their licenses, even if they didn't really do anything to go above and beyond the typical kart-racing formula that hasn't changed much since Mario Kart on the Super NES.

Consequently, to keep in line with these titles, all Super Bombad Racing really needs to do is make good use of the Star Wars license, which is arguably much more appealing than any other that has ever been used for a kart racing game. And if it does this and offers up gameplay that is at least on par with all previous efforts in the genre, which isn't really that hard, then it could easily be one of the best kart racing game around, for whatever that's worth.

Since we have yet to play Super Bombad Racing, we don't know how the actual gameplay is stacking up, but we do know that Lucas Learning is definitely going to make full use of the license. The game is set to include eight different Star Wars characters from Episode 1, including Anakin Skywalker, Jar Jar Binks, Queen Amidala, Darth Maul, Boss Nass, Obi-wan Kenobi, Yoda, and Sebulba.

And appropriately enough, the characters have been modeled in a cutesy big-heated anime style, which is completely befitting of the kart-racing genre. The characters are all tremendously cute and have a lot of appeal, including the obnoxious and typically annoying Jar Jar Binks.

According to Mark Polcyn, senior marketing manager for Lucas Learning, "The game's stylized look and humorous approach are a departure from traditional Star Wars games. Though Super Bombad Racing is designed for a younger audience, we're confident the appeal is much broader. After all, Star Wars fans come in all ages, shapes and sizes." From what we've seen of the title, we concur that the look of the game is definitely something that younger children will be all over, while still appealing to the diehard fan.

In addition to just being different characters, each will have specific abilities and special attacks that will help distinguish them from the others on a gameplay level and not just in visuals. Jar Jar will obviously be able to make special use of his unique abilities, such as using his tongue to lash out at others and possibly even talk his opponents to death, and we're quite certain that you'll find some light saber action with Obi-wan and Darth Maul.

The environments will also have suitable Star Wars-based environments of which there will be nine in all. These locales will have players racing on everything from the swamps of Naboo, the pod race on Tatooine, and the flying traffic among the towering buildings of Coruscant. With any luck, they'll be as cleverly designed as the ones in the Walt Disney-based kart racer.

As far as modes and features are concerned, it'll have everything that we've come to expect in a kart game. There are four gameplay modes including Challenge, Cooperative, Versus, and Arena and the game supports one to four players (with use of a MultiTap). Plus, there are more than 25 different power-ups and special pickups, such as boosts, shields and weapons that will perform differently depending on the character, and plenty of secrets to be discovered by the game player.

It won't likely turn a lot of heads or make you believe in the power of the PlayStation 2 (games like LucasArts' Star Wars Starfighter are meant to do that), but it might not be the repulsive title that many are making it out to be. Lucas Learning's Star Wars Super Bombad Racing is currently scheduled to hit store shelves in North America in May 2001 and we should have more detailed hands-on impressions of the game well before its release.